Dance : Open Gate Theatre Offers ‘Lightbreaking’ in Pasadena

The Open Gate Theatre represents Southern California multiculturalism at its most idealized: a dozen artists of many heritages and disciplines working together to develop a collaborative identity and style.

On Saturday, when the 8-year-old company moved into a large studio on the third floor of First Congregational Church in Pasadena, the episodic communal piece “Lighbreaking” celebrated this beginning, along with “all other births.”

Gone the dark vision that has led founder Will Salmon to memorable statements about cruelty, helplessness and irrational impulse. Welcome, instead, Salmon as an amiable ringmaster--sentimental about his young daughter Mitsu (the inspiration for “Lightbreaking”), indulgent enough to offer generous showpiece opportunities to nearly every member of the ensemble.

Happily, the primacy of music remained from earlier Open Gates: the sense that, whatever else might happen, the core expression of the event belonged to Salmon on flute, Bruce Fowler on trombone and especially Alex Cline on percussion. Drumming and singing by the others enhanced the atmospheric, richly textured music of these three, just as the dancing interpreted it and extended its implications.

Open Gate boasts such capable dancers as the febrile Janice Motoike and the forceful MA Bell. But Pip Abrigo seemed something more: a deeply imaginative artist who made a soulful meditation on human duality from his solo’s bold contrasts between macho fighting stances and sensuous undulations.

A trilingual domestic scene with Hector Abristizabal and Dagmar Stanec proved the only text-based section on Saturday, but Open Gate’s schedule of monthly programs ensures that First Congregational Church will be hosting a wide variety of new work. A highly promising prospect.